Kotok: Sticking With 5 Fave ETFs In 2014

Cumberland, for now, is sticking with its five ‘core’ equity ETFs in 2014.

This article is part of a regular series of thought leadership pieces from some of the more influential ETF strategists in the money management industry. Today’s article features David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer of Sarasota, Fla.-based Cumberland Advisors.

As 2014 commences, we are looking forward and also looking back by examining our ETF strategy.

Last year was a dramatic stock market year, and everyone in the market knows it. What’s perhaps less clear to some investors is the way forward, and that’s why I want to say a few words about our “core” strategy.

For the record, we remain fully invested in the U.S. stock market using the same five main ETFs from last year—each of which outperformed—yes, outperformed—the SPDR S&P 500 ETF’s (SPY | A-98) impressive 30 percent-plus rise last year.

Those who retreated to the sidelines are kicking themselves for missing out on stellar returns. Stock portfolios that were invested in 2013 and that maintained their positions and diversified distributions rose about 30 percent.

Investors achieved this without needing to pick single “hot” stocks and without having to concentrate risk.

At Cumberland Advisors, we only use ETFs in the management of stock portfolios worldwide.

In the U.S., we have a basic core position that selects broad-based ETFs. We add satellite positions in sectors and specific industries.

Cumberland’s Core ETFs

At the end of 2013, Cumberland’s core position comprised the five ETFs mentioned above.

Those five ETFs expose the portfolio to approximately 3,000 different stocks in a weighting system that is derived from the contents of the ETFs. In 2013, those weights changed as occasional substitutions were made in the ETF portfolios’ core section. We won’t elaborate on the details of those changes since this is a proprietary technique.

In January 2014, the five different ETFs in our ETF core portfolio ranged in weight from a high of 30 percent to a low of 10 percent. While our portfolio composition and weights varied through last year, our main objective for this core investment style is to offer a low turnover with very broad diversification.

Looking at returns of the five ETFs more closely, the PowerShares Dynamic Market Portfolio (PWC | B-60) produced a 41 percent total return in 2013, and outperformed SPY by about 9 percentage points.

The next two ETFs, the Guggenheim S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP | A-71) and the iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF (IWO | A-84), are each larger positions, and both also outperformed SPY last year, by 3 percentage points and 11 percentage points, respectively.

We start the year with these proven and promising core positions, but they may change at any time.

Looking Ahead

The point is, transition is ahead in 2014.

The new year starts out with the same low interest rates at the short end of the yield curve as we saw in January 2013. The bond market is already up in terms of longer-term interest rates. The yield curve is steepening, which suggests economic growth rates will be improving.

Not least, the Federal Reserve has finally commenced “tapering.”

The bond market seems to be ignoring the current low-inflation statistics. In a longer-run scheme, bonds are negatively impacted by inflation that erodes the real value of the bond’s payment stream.